“Animals do have a voice. If you ignore their suffering, I will remind you of it. If you don’t understand them, I will translate. If you don’t hear them, I will be their voice. You may silence them but you cannot silence me as long as I live.” ~ Anita Mahdessian

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In their petition, the activists cited U.S. trade figures showing that more than 5,600 wild Africa lions were hunted and then exported as trophies between 1999 and 2008, with 64 percent of those trophies being imported into the U.S.

Trophy hunters counter that while their hobby is regulated, licensed and recorded, the slaughter of lions by locals protecting livestock is rampant and largely uncontrolled.

Many African nations with lion populations they consider healthy allow trophy hunting as a way to bring in revenue for locals as well as to help fund wildlife programs.

The U.S. has listed non-native animals before since the act is meant to ensure the U.S. citizens “do not contribute to the further decline of that species in its native habitat,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said in its announcement.

Earlier this year Rolex announced the five winners of the 2012 Rolex Awards for Enterprise, who are being honored in New Delhi, India, on November 27. This profile looks at the work of 2012 Laureate Sergei Bereznuk, director of the Phoenix Fund, a small environmental NGO in Russia. Bereznuk and his team of six people are carrying out an impressive range of activities to preserve the endangered Siberian tiger over a territory of 64,000 square miles (166,000 square kilometers).

“The Russian Far East is home to 95 per cent of the remaining population of the Amur, the biggest of the world’s tigers (also known as the Siberian tiger), which weighs on average 200 kg [440 pounds], Rolex says in document prepared for the award ceremony. “Today, an estimated 350 to 500 of this subspecies (Panthera tigris altaica) roam the frontier region bordering China and the Sea of Japan. Although sustained conservation efforts over recent years have moved the Amur tigers from Critically Endangered to Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, they still remain at risk – mainly due to poaching.

Wild tigers worldwide now number an estimated 4,000 adult individuals in the wild, down from 100,000 in 1900.

Rolex states:

“For the past 17 years, Sergei Bereznuk, a staunch Russian conservationist and ecologist, has been working valiantly to save the Amur tiger. Based on his experience since 1995 with a tiger anti-poaching brigade in the Primorsky Krai, the Russian Far East province commonly known as Primorye, Bereznuk is convinced that saving the Amur tiger depends on both the efficiency of anti-poaching measures and the education of the local people, two elements at the core of his Rolex Award-winning project. Moreover, he considers the Amur tiger as a powerful driver for the general conservation of its ecosystem, the taiga forest.

“As director of the Phoenix Fund, a small, environmental NGO that he has headed for 12 years, Bereznuk and his team of six people are carrying out an impressive range of activities to preserve the Amur tiger over a territory of 166,000 km2. These include support of anti-poaching units, awareness-raising among local people, reversing habitat reduction due to fires and logging and resolution of human-animal conflicts, along with providing compensation for damage and monitoring invasive industrial projects in the region.”

“Poaching remains the principal threat to the tigers’ survival,” Rolex adds. “The animals are killed in retaliation, mainly for loss of cattle and wild prey and as hunting trophies. There is also demand for their skin, bones and body parts, used primarily in Chinese traditional medicine. Despite international laws banning the sale of tiger parts there is a lucrative market that fuels poaching. In their campaign to reduce the slaughter, Bereznuk and the Vladivostok-based Phoenix Fund provide anti-poaching teams with software – the Management Information System (MIST) – developed specifically for this purpose by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Up-to-date, relevant and timely information is an integral part of effective protected area management.

“Bereznuk provides anti-poaching units with fuel, spare parts for their patrolling vehicles, incentive payments, as well as training. With the Phoenix Fund’s support, these teams could improve their efficiency in terms of the number of arrests, prosecutions and influence on poachers.

“He is conscious, however, that these methods are not a solution in the long term and so he has developed extensive educational and outreach activities. Phoenix Fund-supported educators work with children, creating educational materials, films, competitions and eco-events, most notably the annual Tiger Day Festivals in Vladivostok and other regional centres, and generally encouraging villagers and young people to treasure the planet’s wildlife. For Bereznuk, the Tiger Day Festival is a powerful motivational tool.”

“Bereznuk’s project is the first example of cutting-edge, anti-poaching methods and environmental awareness-raising activities in Russia’s Far East. The Phoenix Fund, while partnering with other major environmental organizations, is the only Russian organization conducting and supporting these programmes in the region. It has strong community ties, cultural sensitivity and an extended network of local field workers.

“A modest and pragmatic man who has overcome major odds in a highly challenging environment, Bereznuk has, with great tenacity, begun to change attitudes and empower a young team of collaborators to sustain the Amur tiger population.

“His Rolex Award for Enterprise will provide funding for his project in 2013 and, significantly, focus world attention on his efforts to protect this flagship species.”

Since receiving his Rolex Award in June 2012, Sergei Bereznuk has made great strides in his continued efforts to preserve the Amur tiger and its forest habitat in Russia’s Far East, according to Rolex.

“In September, Bereznuk organized a meeting of the four anti-poaching units working in the Lazovsky Nature Reserve, 300 km north of Vladivostok, where the Phoenix Fund and the Wildlife Conservation Society introduced the wildlife Management Information System (MIST) software last year. Each unit, comprising three to nine rangers equipped with GPS and patrol equipment, provided with fuel and uniforms thanks to Bereznuk’s Rolex Award, compared data on the number and routes of patrols they conducted, along with their observations on tigers and wildlife in general, the state of the forest, and the reach of poachers and loggers.

“In order to help reduce forest fires and agricultural burn-offs, which take a toll on the tiger’s habitat by turning forest into open meadows and brushwood, Bereznuk and the Phoenix Fund signed an agreement with three other local organizations, including the All Russia Volunteer Fire Organization, to create a network of volunteer, fire-fighting teams ready to be deployed in the Primorsky Krai region.

“On 30 September, Bereznuk’s Phoenix Fund, along with partner organizations, led the 13th annual Tiger Day Festival in Vladivostok. Over 4,000 costumed schoolchildren and students, decked out in various shades of orange tiger stripes, walked down the city’s main street to raise awareness of tiger and forest conservation, while 5,000 spectators looked on. Bereznuk then received an award from the city’s mayor for “his invaluable contribution to the ecological education of the local community.”

As 2012 comes to an end, Cee4life would like to remember some extraordinary animals. We humans are always so quick to pat ourselves on the back and say “good job”. But out there in the world are creatures that paved the way for future animals, who’s very being and story changed things forever.

This year we met 4 beautiful cheetah cubs, the Mara Cheetah Cubs, and Tumbo the disabled cheetah cub

. We fought hard for the Mara cubs freedom and release in to the wild, we lost. They became captives. We fought for Tumbo to live an ethical life cared for by the family who loved him and raised him, we lost and Tumbo became a captive.

These cubs went into the Nairobi Animal Orphanage and film of vulgar handling, (abuse) of the wild Mara cubs was released, and then the little girl died…. xo. Tumbo the once free roaming cheetah cub was locked inside a tiny enclosure, nothing of how he had lived.

WE cried out, together we cried out.

But somewhere along the path, something happened. With all the media, all the outcry, a change was made. Now, inside the Nairobi Orphanage the surviving cubs are being cared for a little more ethically.

We here at Cee4life, want to thank these extraordinary innocent cheetahs, for paving the way to more ethical care. We want to thank them for enduring the unendurable, for existing so humans would be forced to make a better environment for future animals. We want to send them all of our love, and We promise, that we will always watch over them, and we will Never Give Up xoxo Sybelle, Donna, Dawn, Ledonna, Scott, and all at Cee4life

In a letter addressed to the minister for environment and forest, Dube has claimed that the norms have been violated while disposing off the remains of the tigress. He said that a post mortem was not performed and the forest department has claimed that “it to be a natural death“.

“Without performing an autopsy how can they claim that it was a natural death, Dube wondered.

On Nov 18, the official in-charge of the forest circle where the incident took place had stated that an FIR would be filed against the electricity department as the tigress was “allegedly electrocuted” and the electricity department was responsible for the management of power lines responsible for the incident.

However, the forest department in its primary offence report (POR) no 307/ 21, did not mention any one and the report has been registered against “anonymous”. In the POR, the department has mentioned the cause of the death as “natural”, he added.

‘The four year old male Lion was playing with three young cubs – or rather, they were tormenting him, since all he wanted to do was have a rest.

‘The older male and a female were walking 20 metres from us, rubbing their heads every couple of seconds showing affection.

‘While watching them the other female appeared from the thicket. As soon as the 4 year old male saw the female, which is the mother of the cubs he was knocking over every now and again, he jumped up and jogged towards her.

‘It looked like she was just waiting for the right moment. She stood still until the last second.

The lioness lost her grip eventually slipping from the head of the male

The male lion paid little attention to the incident and strolled on after the mother fell to the ground

‘As he was half a meter away, she pounced on him. She did loose her grip though and quickly fell to the other side of him.

‘With the female at his paws on the ground he just glanced down, as though to say: ‘Was that it?’.

‘He just kept on walking past her and us sitting in the Cruiser, and lay down to rest close to a thicket behind us.

‘The cubs quickly saw the opportunity of mum laying on her side, ran towards her and started suckling.’

A group of Siberian tigers rest in the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, capital of northeast China‘s Heilongjiang Province, Nov. 19, 2012. Altogether 91 Siberian tiger cubs, one of world’s most endangered animals, were born in 2012 in the park. The park now has 1,067 Siberian tigers and is the largest Siberian tiger breeding and field training center in the world. [Photo: Xinhua/Wang Jianwei]

There was good news for one of the world’s rarest species on Monday, when it was revealed that 91 Siberian tiger cubs have been born this year in an artificial breeding park in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province.

The births mean there are now 1,067 Siberian tigers in the Siberian Tiger Park in the suburbs of Harbin, the provincial capital, said Liu Dan, chief engineer at the park.

Twenty of the 91 cubs will be selected to join the state-level group for artificial breeding to ensure the quality of the species, said Liu.

The park has been strictly controlling the number of artificially bred Siberian tigers in recent years, the chief engineer added.

It began to use DNA tests to prevent “intermarriage” among Siberian tigers in 2001.

Also known as “China Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Center”, the park was established in 1986 with eight Siberian tigers.

Siberian tigers, otherwise known as Amur or Manchurian tigers, mainly live in east Russia, northeast China and northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Some 500 of the animals currently live in the wild, with an estimated 12 in Heilongjiang and eight to 10 in neighboring Jilin Province.